Firm pays staff for cycling to work

Manish, Mysore, July 16, 2012, DHNS:

Green bonus

An IT firm here is paying Rs 1,000 a month each to its employees for cycling to work.

Divya Pushparaj of Qwinix Technologies, a social media aficionado, said the company, located at Metagalli on KRS Road here, has only nine employees on its roster and the incentive has already spurred three among them to take to cycling to office daily.†

Three other employees—Divya B who lives near K R Circle, Pooja A from Vontikoppal and Mathew Joseph from Metagalli—have also turned into bicycle enthusiasts and use the eco-friendly two-wheeler quite often. The norm for earning the incentive is to cycle to work on at least 75 per cent of workdays in a month. Darshan Puttanaiah, CEO of the firm who launched Qwinix in the US city of Denver in 2007, †opened a branch in the city in April this year. The offer letter sent to new recruits spells out that Rs 1,000 incentive awaits employees who adopt the green mode of travel.

Speaking to Deccan Herald, staffer Raghavendra K S said he rode a motorbike when he worked for another company previously. After he joined Qwinix, the pro-cycling incentive made him purchase a brand new bicycle.

Three months into pedalling his way to office now, Raghavendra said cycling keeps him fresh and energetic throughout the day.†

Affirming that it was, indeed, good exercise, Raghavendra said he now used the bicycle even when off duty.

He urged other companies to offer similar incentives to employees which help promote a clean environment.